Your Cash Is No Good At The Apple Store

If you’re saving up to buy an iPad, don’t do it by sticking your spare cash into an envelope. (Or a sock, for that matter.) As a woman in Palo Alto, Calif. learned, the same “credit or debit cards only” policy that Apple put in place to prevent rampant reselling of iPhones exists for iPads, and no stack of bills can be exchanged for the shiny gadget.

Being disabled and on a fixed income, Campbell held off on buying a computer until the Apple iPad came along. It was small, mobile and perfect for her needs. So, little by little she saved up the $600 she needed to get one.

“It took quite a long time for me to just save up this small amount of money to go down and purchase one,” she said. “I had my cash in the backpack and I went up proudly to the counter and told them, ‘I would like to purchase an iPad.'”

She was at the Apple store in Palo Alto, about to pull out the big wad of cash and take home her first computer. Instead, she received a terrible blow.

“They said, ‘Sorry, we don’t take cash.’ And, so I looked at her and I said, OK she’s kidding,” Campbell recalled.

Customers can purchase iPhones with Apple gift cards, but not their plus-sized cousins. Indeed, Apple’s policy makes it difficult for people without bank accounts to buy the iPad–no matter how carefully they saved up for them.